Indian textile contractors face occupational precarity due to caste discrimination

New research finds that caste hierarchies trump occupational hierarchies, challenging the notion that social capital can lessen work precarity and improve conditions for less-resourced people.

The term ‘caste’ originates from the Portuguese word ‘casta’ or pure and has been used since the early 16th century Portuguese colonisation and occupation of India to refer to the social stratifications that existed among the inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent.

But the caste system has existed in some form  in India for several thousand years. While it originated in the religious scriptures, it is not exclusive to any religion or country and can be found among those who practice Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, and Sikhism, across South Asia and among South Asian diaspora populations around the world.

Caste is similar to social class, but mobility is impossible, and discrimination based on caste can occur among those of the same social class.

Professor Hari Bapuji’s recent publication, co-authored with Professor Vivek Soundararajan from the University of Bath and Assistant Professor Garima Sharma from the American University, examines the influence of caste on differential experiences of precarity among labour contractors in the Indian garment industry.

“I started working on this research because growing up in India, I thought caste divisions would disappear as the country experienced economic progress and technological advancements.

“But several years ago, I started to see news about people of lower caste being killed for frivolous reasons like keeping a moustache, riding a horse, wearing good clothes, or wearing a certain type of shoes.

“It made me wonder why caste inequalities persist, and why they haven’t gone away. More broadly, as inequalities are a hindrance to social and economic progress, it made me wonder why these persisted in a modern era that prioritises socioeconomic progress.

“Most research on labour precarity investigates workers as a single group, ignoring the fact that precarity can be experienced differently by people from different social groups.

“This means we currently don't have a good understanding of why some people in the same occupation may be more (or less) precariously situated, and that makes it difficult to address inequalities based on social group membership.

“The study adopted a social diversity view to explain how precarity can exacerbate poverty through unstable employment for those from low castes, partly because these groups lack the social capital that their peers from the high castes have.”

History of the caste system

Some scholars trace the caste system to the Manusmriti, which suggests that Brahma, the Hindu god of creation, created four categories of people from his own body: Brahmins from his head, Kshatriyas from his arms, Vysyas from his thighs, and Shudras from his feet.

Officially known as Scheduled Castes, Dalits—the “untouchables”—are ranked beneath Shudras. Although discrimination against Dalits was outlawed by India’s constitution in 1950, caste-based prejudices live on, and are even inflamed when Dalits and others considered to be lower caste assert their right to equality, with actions like wearing good clothes or shoes, for example.

Caste is inherited from one’s father and cannot be inferred from one’s skin colour or facial feature. It is symbolic and invisible, with indicators of one’s caste including but not exclusive to surnames, dietary preferences, languages and accents, deities worshipped, rituals practiced, ancestral occupations, and residential location.

The constitution has enshrined affirmative-action programs for Dalits and other marginalised groups in the public sector, but across the Indian economy, they continue to occupy the lowest rungs.

Centuries of caste-based discrimination has enabled deep economic inequalities that still influence the opportunities and rewards available to individuals based on caste, and this has extended into organisations.

Labour market intermediaries, social capital and precarity

Professors Soundararajan, Sharma, and Bapuji conducted a study to compare the situation of Dalit labour contractors and upper caste labour contractors in the knitwear garment exporting cluster in the Indian city of Tirupur.

The contractors acted as labour market intermediaries (LMIs) or subcontractors responsible for arranging and supervising workers, with payment from the employer for their services. The contractors, in turn, paid wages to the workers, which were based on the complexity of the job and paid upon completion.

LMIs can help those employers (ie contractors for multinational corporations) to keep wages low, increase flexibility, and offload the burden of monitoring and controlling workers. They can also contribute to the creation and maintenance of precarity, with some intermediaries being more precarious than others, depending on their social group.

The study found that Dalit contractors were more precariously employed than upper caste contractors due to the unequal distribution of social capital along caste lines that threatened the survival of Dalit contractors by distorting their economic wellbeing and destabilising their leadership.

Dalits were often excluded from social networks, confining their spatial mobility, limiting their resourceful connections, and thwarting growth opportunities that would bring upward mobility and lower precarity.

The study found that a lack of social capital manifested in a variety of ways, including the preferential assignment of work or better rates to contractors of a similar caste as employers. In contrast, Dalit contractors were disrespected in front of their workers by upper caste employers, resulting in the contractor struggling to recruit or control workers, and the spatial segregation of lower castes in the workplace.

“Caste hierarchies trump occupational hierarchies, with Dalits being strictly kept outside of some spaces, even if they’re in a more managerial position like a labour contractor – it really challenges the notion that social capital can lessen precarity and improve conditions for poorer and less-resourced people,” said Professor Bapuji.

As social capital serves as a major hindrance to Dalit subcontractors, policy initiatives are needed to help them overcome the spatial segregation and resource constraints. Multinational firms can design and implement procurement policies that not only eliminate caste discrimination in their supply chains but also reward contractors who provide equal opportunities to everyone irrespective of caste, and restrain contractors from working only with their caste kin.

Read more about Dr Hari Bapuji’s research and published articles

‘Caste, Social Capital and Precarity of Labour Market Intermediaries: The Case of Dalit Labour Contractors in India’ was published in Organization Studies in May 2023.